Cotton + Steel Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress

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Well hellooooo!  And happy summer to you, if you are, in fact, enjoying summer at the moment.  I’ve been having a lovely month of camping and beaches and swimming and sun.  But August is here which means I’m back to work gearing up for back to school, and honestly, I’m already behind.  How can that be possible!?

Anyways, I’m here with my latest Miss Matatabi Makers project, but since I ended up making two dresses, I’m sharing one here and the other on the Miss Matatabi blog!  So check out Kaya’s wrap dress here and then head over there to see Yuki’s dress.

Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress by you & mie

This month I decided I’d make some new dresses for the girls.  It’s always hard to choose from all the great fabrics in the Miss Matatabi shop, but I decided to start off with Clothesline Floral from Kim Kight’s new Lucky Strikes collection because I thought the floral was sweet and perfect for some back-to-school outfits.  It comes in two color ways, red (seen here) and periwinkle.

Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress by you & mie

The funny thing is, I had a very strong vision for Yuki’s dress.  I had sketched it out, I was excited about it, I’d pondered the fabric combinations and carefully planned the construction.  So when it came time to make the dress, I knew exactly what I was doing and went for it.  It came out ok.

Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress by you & mie

When it came to Kaya’s dress, I had no idea what I was going to make.  Then one day I happened to pull a dress out of the back of the closet that I had made 4 years ago for Yuki.  It was a wrap dress that I had drafted based off a store bought dress.  I reminisced about how I used to just make things and draft my own patterns even though I had no idea what I was doing and sometimes they’d work out and sometimes they wouldn’t, but at least I had tried and was taking risks and learning.  I feel like I lack that boldness these days and get lazy, depend on patterns too much, or feel too scared or tired to be creative.

Anyways, that old wrap dress was pretty cute even though the fit was never great, so I decided to recreate it one more time, but hopefully do a better job, using what I’d learned in the meantime and starting with a reliable pattern to modify instead of drafting from scratch.  I had a good chunk of time that day and was able to finish the dress practically in one go.  And I love it.  Even more than the one I had planned out for days.  It’s simple, but it’s pretty darn lovely.  Funny how things go sometimes.

Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress by you & mie

I started with the Geranium Dress pattern by Made by Rae.  That is my “go to” dress pattern for kids.  I use that bodice as a starting point for almost all of the dresses I’ve made for the girls.  So for this dress, I altered the front bodice piece to swoop down and across to the other side.  For the back, I made it into one piece, omitting the button placket/closure.

Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress by you & mie

I lined the bodice with another Cotton + Steel print, Add It Up (navy) from the Paper Bandana collection.  It may look like little white polka dots, but they are actually plus signs (hence the name).  It’s super cute and subtle.  The neckline/ties are made from an extra long bias strip from some chambray I had in my stash.  I made a buttonhole in the side seam of one side to allow the tie to pass through, and on the other side I made a little thread loop to keep the tie in place.  Overall, the dress construction came out quite well!

Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress by you & mie

I thought the selvedge design was so sweet, I just folded and sewed it down so it would show along the inner edge.  I love those little bowling pins.  The skirt is three gathered rectangular panels, with lots of volume, and I added pin tuck pleats above the hem.  A cute vintage-y kinda detail.

Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress by you & mie

The fabric is quilting cotton and though I don’t use it often to make garments anymore, it was lovely to sew and is great to the touch.  It is high quality and has a nice weight to it.  The girls love their dresses and I know they are easy to throw in the wash for cleaning, so I’m happy about that!

Clothesline Floral Triangle Back Dress by you & mie

Be sure to check out Yuki’s new dress over at Miss Matatabi!  I started with the same pattern (the Geranium) and ended up with a very different dress.

And thanks for stopping by here.  It means a lot to me 🙂

Take care!

31 thoughts on “Cotton + Steel Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress”

  6. oh man, dude, this is just perfect! the fabric combo and dress style go together so well, and it fits her beautifully! i want to make one! love seeing you flex your creative muscles again. off to check out yuki’s dress…!

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  7. Those dresses are SO precious and fit SO well! I have always wanted to try to make something like this for my daughter,but it seems so complicated! GREAT job! 🙂

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  10. Oh wow, this is just perfect. I’m going to try to reproduce this for my little girl, she won’t wear anything with buttons so this would be perfect! It’s so pretty!

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  11. Great job, I was reminded of the Betsy Johnson dresses I used to make for Jude in sweet ditsy prints! I still have one with a pinafore, in our trunk!

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  13. Such a cute dress! You are amazing at sewing. Would you mind checking out my blog for a minute or two? It would mean a lot to me. It is called stellar styles blog, or sTellar sTyles blog. Both dresses are beautiful. 🙂
    -Elle

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  15. Wow, I love the pin tuck pleats along the hem – very vintage chic indeed! You are so good at picking complementary fabrics. This dress and also Yuki’s dress are great fabric combos.

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  17. Pingback: Cotton + Steel Clothesline Floral Wrap Dress | danifoff

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